Η πρόζα του κόσμου

by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Φώτης Καλλίας (Μεταφραστής), Μαρία Καλλία (Μεταφράστρια)

Κάθε μεγάλη πρόζα είναι συνάμα μια αναδημιουργία του σημαίνοντος εργαλείου, χειρισμένου στο εξής σύμφωνα με μια νέα σύνταξη. Η πεζότητα περιορίζεται να αγγίζει με συμφωνημένα σημεία σημασίες ήδη εγκατεστημένες μέσα στον πολιτισμό. Η μεγάλη πρόζα είναι η τέχνη να αιχμαλωτίζεις ένα νόημα που ποτέ μέχρι τότε δεν είχε αντικειμενικοποιηθεί και να το κάνεις προσιτό σε όλους όσοι μιλούν την ίδια γλώσσα. Ένας συγγραφέας επιζεί, όταν δεν είναι πια ικανός να θεμελιώσει έτσι μια νέα καθολικότητα και να επικοινωνήσει μέσα στον κίνδυνο.

Μας φαίνεται ότι και για τους άλλους θεσμούς θα μπορούσαμε να πούμε ότι έπαυσαν να ζουν, όταν δείχνονταν ανίκανοι να κυοφορήσουν μια ποίηση των ανθρώπινων σχέσεων, δηλαδή το κάλεσμα καθεμιάς ελευθερίας προς όλες τις άλλες. Ο Χέγκελ έλεγε ότι το ρωμαϊκό κράτος είναι η πρόζα του κόσμου. Θα τιτλοφορήσουμε "Εισαγωγή στην πρόζα του κόσμου" αυτή την εργασία που οφείλει, επεξεργαζόμενη την κατηγορία της πρόζας, να της δώσει, πέρα από τη λογοτεχνία, μια κοινωνιολογική σημασία.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Portuguese Literature, Literature, Language

201 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. At the core of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is a sustained argument for the foundational role that perception plays in understanding the world as well as engaging with the world. Like the other major phenomenologists Merleau-Ponty expressed his philosophical insights in writings on art, literature, and politics; however Merleau-Ponty was the only major phenomenologist of the first half of the Twentieth Century to engage extensively with the sciences, and especially with descriptive psychology. Because of this engagement, his writings have become influential with the recent project of naturalizing phenomenology in which phenomenologists utilize the results of psychology and cognitive science.

Merleau-Ponty was born in Rochefort-sur-Mer, Charente-Maritime. His father was killed in World War 1 when Merleau-Ponty was 3. After secondary schooling at the lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, Maurice Merleau-Ponty became a student at the École Normale Supérieure, where he studied alongside Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Simone Weil. He passed the agrégation in philosophy in 1930.

Merleau-Ponty first taught at Chartres, then became a tutor at the École Normale Supérieure, where he was awarded his doctorate on the basis of two important books: La structure du comportement (1942) and Phénoménologie de la Perception (1945).

After teaching at the University of Lyon from 1945 to 1948, Merleau-Ponty lectured on child psychology and education at the Sorbonne from 1949 to 1952. He was awarded the Chair of Philosophy at the Collège de France from 1952 until his death in 1961, making him the youngest person to have been elected to a Chair.

Besides his teaching, Merleau-Ponty was also political editor for Les Temps Modernes from the founding of the journal in October 1945 until December 1952.

Aged 53, he died suddenly of a stroke in 1961, apparently while preparing for a class on Descartes. He was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

110218: i remember when i first tried to extrapolate my drawings with 'renaissance perspective', that is, single vanishing point, horizon, diminishing by distance etc. i was first very enthused, then very frustrated, as it seemed to promise something so geometrically exact in perception- and then it failed, not only as art but also in what i could see. i thought it was just my fault. this was as a highschool student. of course i moved on, became focused on contour, colour, composition, as well as learning different graphite and ink and watercolours. yet it was only much later that i was able to see renaisance perspective as a natural error, as merleau-ponty examines it here...

'every painting requires a metaphysics': this chosen, artificial, monocular, calculated 'renaissance perspective' is not what we see, if we attend closely, but apparent design supports then enforces an entire way of looking at the phenomenal real. by neglecting our binocular vision resolved into one monocular, by exploring in depth with the same details, by confusing the shape of the world as something to represent on a plane, on two dimensions, on singular vanishing point, on insisting equal access of everything to the viewer, rather than drifting foci and opacity of human perception- this is an essay i wish i had read or asked about to my (scientist)father's sisters(artists), this comes perhaps years (decades...) too late, but even if i can no longer draw, paint, etch, i can read philosophy, i can look at art with this corrected sense... m-p is indeed my favourite philosopher on the arts, possibly in his tendency to talk not only of the work (painting etc) but the individual/total vision of the worker (artist)...

200201: more Merleau-Ponty's Ontology
Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings
The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting
Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology: The Problem of Ideal Objects
The Phenomenological Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty
The Being of the Phenomenon: Merleau-Ponty's Ontology
The Visible and the Invisible
Merleau-Ponty's Last Vision: A Proposal for the Completion of "The Visible and the Invisible"
Deleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty: The Logic and Pragmatics of Creation, Affective Life, and Perception
bonus
Ark of the Possible: The Animal World in Merleau-Ponty

[Théo d'Or]

Monkeys can't read. They can give the impression that they read, just as boys give the impression that they cry, and it is precisely in this silent mimicry that lies a true connection, an unspoken dialogue between the animate and the inanimate , where the gestures of a monkey flipping through pages or a boy's tear-streaked face become symbols in a meaning, where the rustling of leaves in the wind, and the silent, steady gaze of a cat contribute to a prose that speaks without words, where the monkey's page-turning is as meaningful as a politician's promise, and the boys' tears are as genuine as a coded joke that we - the so-called speaking beings - are too busy pontificating to notice, missing the irony that the rustling leaves and the cat's indifferent stare are probably more profound than our endless chatter, that the world is a stage where every non-speaking actor plays their part with a subtlety we can only dream of, while we bumble through our lines, convinced of our own importance, more convinced even than a monkey with a thoughtful expression, not noticing that every movement, every sound, every silence - is a part of a grand narrative, a narrative that we - as speaking beings - often overlook in our ambition for verbal articulation, yet it is in these moments of non-verbal communication that the true essence of being is revealed, an essence that binds a prose to the world in ways that words can never fully capture, a prose which is not confined to the pages of a book, but is written by our simple existence, in the silent communion between all living beings, in an universal language that speaks to us all, if only we take the time to listen.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

«El lenguaje sólo sigue siendo enigmático para quien no deja de interrogarlo, o sea, de hablar de él».

[Borja Delgado · Rating 5 out of 5]

después de leer esta maravilla no quiero escribir nada que no refleje un latente estado de cuerpo!

[Kai]

This one was a toughie

[Marea sdp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siempre en tu barco, Mauricio.

«¿Cómo podrían ser el poeta o el pintor otra cosa que su encuentro con el mundo? ¿De qué iban a hablar?» (p. 73)

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN UNPUBLISHED WORK FROM THE FRENCH PHENOMENOLOGIST

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher; he died suddenly of a stroke in 1961 at age 53.

The Editor’s Preface states, “The work which Maurice Merleau-Ponty planned to call ‘The Prose of the World,’ or ‘Introduction to the Prose of the World,’ is unfinished. There is good reason to believe that the author deliberately abandoned it and that, had he lived, he would not have completed it, at least in the form that he first outlined. Once finished, the book was to constitute the first section of a two-part work---the second would have had a more distinctly metaphysical nature---whose aim was to offer us, as an extension of the ‘Phenomenology of Perception,’ a theory of truth.”

He says, “Speaking and listening, action and perception, are quite distinct operations for me only when I reflect upon them. Then I analyze the spoken words into ‘motor impulses’ or ‘articulated elements’ understanding them as auditory ‘sensations and perceptions.’ When I am actually speaking I do not first FIGURE the MOVEMENTS involved. My whole bodily system concentrates on finding and saying the word, in the same way that my hand moves toward what is offered to me. Furthermore, it is not even the word or phrase that I have in mind but the person.” (Pg. 18-19)

He suggests, “There is an ‘I speak’ which ends doubt about language in the same way that the ‘I think’ terminated universal doubt about language in the same way that the ‘I think’ terminated universal doubt. Everything I say about language presupposes it, but that does not validate what I say; it only shows that language is not an object, that it is capable of repetition, that it is accessible from the inside.” (Pg. 24)

He states, “The marvel that a finite number of signs, forms, and words should give rise to an indefinite number of uses, or that other and identical marvel that linguistic meaning, directs toward something beyond language, is the very prodigy of speech, and anyone who tries to explain it in terms of its ‘beginning’ or its ‘end’ would lose sight of its ‘doing.’ In the living exercise of speech there is really a repetition of all preceding experience, an appeal to the fulfillment of language, a presumptive eternity…

"In sum, we have found that signs, morphemes, and words, taken one by one, signify nothing, they succeed in conveying signification only through their assembly, just as communication passes from the whole of spoken language to the whole of understood language. Speaking is spelling out at each point a communication whose principle is already established.” (Pg. 41-42)

He observes, ”History is the judge---not History as the Power of a moment or of a century, but history as the space of inscription and accumulation beyond the limits of countries and epochs of what was have said and done that is most true and valuable, taking into account the circumstances in which we had to speak… True history thus gets it life entirely from us. It is in our present that true history gets the force to refer everything else in the present. The OTHER whom I respect gets his life from me as I get my life from him. A philosophy of history does not deprive me of any rights and privileges. It simply adds to my personal obligations the obligation to understand situations other than my own and to create a path between my life and the lives of others, that is, to express myself.” (Pg. 86)

He states, “Between myself as speech and the other as speech, or more generally myself as expression and the other as speech, or more generally myself as expression and the other as expression, there is no longer that alternation which makes a rivalry of the relation between minds. I am not active only when speaking; rather, I precede my thought in the listener. I am not passive while I am listening; rather, I speak according to… what the other is saying.

"Speaking is not just my own initiative, listening is not submitting to the initiative of the other, because as speaking subjects we are CONTINUING, we are resuming a common effort more ancient than we, upon which we are grafted to one another and which is the manifestation, the growth of truth… What we call speech is nothing but such anticipation and repetition, this touching from a distance, which cannot be grasped in terms of contemplation.” (Pg. 143-144)

Obviously, this is not one of Merleau-Ponty’s “major works”; but it will interest serious students of his philosophy.

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merleau-Ponty, as always, approaches common explananda in philosophy (this time mostly language and visual art) from his incredibly distinctive framework -- which I think exemplifies the highest form of naturalism, and at the same time, connects any philosophical explanada with the existential problems that really matter to us. But I am somewhat disappointed with this book; the majority of the substantial ideas in this work are summaries or applications of ideas presented in The Phenomenology of Perception. Nonetheless I would regard this book a worthwhile read.

Merleau-Ponty's approach to language is distinctively phenomenological and existential. He points out that science should explain the phenomena that we experience. Theoretical standards in science, however, often reduce such phenomena to their forms that arise under detached observation, and presuppose that their findings are objective and eternal. To address the first failing, Merleau-Ponty examines the first-person experience of language apprehension. He points out that when we use language, the phonetic qualities of the language (or visual form, if we are reading) vanish entirely from our attention. Instead, we register the meanings conveyed by speech or texts. Merleau-Ponty treats this subject throughout the book, using it as a launching pad to examine the possible connections between language and perception, and language and art.

Moreover, when we listen to speech, the phenomenology of listening is uncannily similar to that of speaking. Merleau-Ponty suggests that the processes that underpin listening and speaking overlap to a large degree, and we should treat these phenomena as interdependent. This point is supported by the sorts of language-related pathologies that can occur. People with schizophrenia sometimes experience that their own speech is uttered by another person; or that someone else's speech is in fact their own, and they are inhabiting their body while speaking. This indicates that non-pathological cases of listening and speaking should arise from processes that could also give rise to such pathological cases. I found this section of the book most innovative and plausible; it is found in chapter 2 "Science and the Experience of Expression".

Merleau-Ponty explores how when we apprehend language, or even use it ourselves, we experience self-transcendence. He explains that when we use language, the standards of language to which we automatically conform have been constituted by so many interactions between other human beings, throughout history. In a way, the description that we are inhabited or possessed by language is accurate, and in speaking we can transcend ourselves. When we are engaged in dialogue with others, the language use of the conversational partners are interdependent; each speaker constrains and, in a way, constitutes the possible responses of the other. Merleau-Ponty treats this subject in chapter 5 "Dialogue and the Perception of the Other"; his treatment is somewhat vague, and I think he does a better job in explaining intersubjectivity and self-transcendence in The Phenomenology of Perception.

The second failing of scientific approaches to language is that they presupposed that language is a determinate and eternally fixed system. This is a dangerous assumption. Merleau-Ponty regards language as essentially creative. Whenever we use language, we rely on linguistic standards that have emerged over our sociocultural history; but we, as agents in new circumstances, always innovate with our usage. Apprehension of language is based on noticing the typical phrases and structures employed, and the ways the present usages of them deviate from these types. Differentiation between present and standard language use gives rise to meaning. I was honestly quite confused about this point; Merleau-Ponty does not argue for it or explain it in detail. Also, in his criticism of mainstream theories, he doesn't distinguish deep syntactical structures, or basic phonological constraints, as necessary and fixed, from semantic aspects of language, which are clearly more conventional and fluid.

Overall, I would recommend readers who are unfamiliar with Merleau-Ponty to go to The Phenomenology of Perception instead. Only readers with a particular interest in how Merleau-Ponty treats language, or in phenomenological approaches to language generally, should read this one.

[Victor Hugo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A experiência última da linguagem é a poesia, numa versão heideggeriana da coisa. Merleau-Ponty parece discorrer sobre isso mas na perspectiva da arte, quando com o mínimo de material expressa e traduz um mundo único e plural. Toda produção mundana é transmutada e condicionada a conversão de sentido em significado.

Classicismo e modernismo entram num embate que o autor expressa: “Enquanto os clássicos eram eles próprios sem que o soubessem, os pintores modernos procuram primeiro ser originais e seu poder de expressão confunde-se com sua diferença."

Há muito o que ser dito sobre essa copilação, capítulos fáceis de serem compreendidos e numa discussão interessante, da até pra casar com a linguagem vygotskiana. 10/10.

[Federico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skimmato in una notte; bomba

[Sean A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in community college for an intro-to-philosophy class and remembered it so fondly I opted to re-read it many years later.

Soooo... What it is is an investigation of language, it's primacy, it's disconnect, how (primarily) painting, literature and math can speak through language, and so forth. It's also a study of perception through the lens of the body-as-focal-point for perception. Merleau-Ponty tends to all over the place in this one, at least regarding the case studies which he uses to prove his point. It starts with literature and the prescient point of Mallarme's mysterious poetic blank page/silence-as-language in the infamous poem "A Roll of the Die Will Never Abolish chance", and ends with umm...children's painting, with pit-stops in Rembrandt paintings, psychology, algorithms and a lot of other stuff.

What I gleaned from it, I still really liked, even though I don't totally agree with all that Merleau-Ponty was getting at, I mostly agree and do see speech as a possible saving grace if not a total pinnacle of umm "humankind", that sort of thing. He hits on the imperfect power of silence, painting as an act-to satisfy itself that happens to satisfy observers and acquaintances too, the mysterious power of madmen and other good stuff.

This work was one the author was apparently working on at the time of his death, however other than it's definite disparate-ness of case-studies this merely shows in its very abrupt ending. Ah-well.
All in all quite satisfying.

[David Markwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is rare that one encounters a work of philosophy that one loves just about every sentence of, but Merleau-Ponty's The Prose of the World, for me, is just that work of philosophy. Merleau-Ponty's exploration of linguistics the diachronic and synchronic nature of language, the phenomenology of speech, communication and expression, intersubjectivity, and ultimately his gestures towards his late ontology (explicated more fully in The Visible and the Invisible) are a fascinating read for anyone interested in philosophy of language. If the work suffers at all, it is in that it was never completed. While Merleau-Ponty had abandoned the work to concentrate on The Visible and the Invisible, editor Claude Lefort maintains (and I think it is fair to say) that Merleau-Ponty would have re-visited the themes; either in The Visible and Invisible or in The Prose of the World had he not passed away suddenly.

[Myhte · Rating 4 out of 5]

language hides itself from us. Its triumph is to efface itself and to take us beyond the words to the author's very thoughts, so that we imagine we are engaged with him in a wordless meeting of minds. Once the words have cooled and been reaffixed to the page as signs, their very power to project us far away from themselves makes it impossible for us to believe they are the source of so many thoughts. Nevertheless, while we were reading, it is these words which spoke to us, suspended in the movement of our eyes and our feelings, which they in turn carried and projected unerringly when they rejoined in us the blind man and the paralytic, when they, thanks to us, and we, thanks to them, became speech rather than language, and in the same instant became a voice and its echo

[George Spirakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Απλά δεν έχω λόγια... μακάρι όλοι μας να μπορούσαμε να αντιληφθούμε τον κόσμο έστω και λίγο με τον τρόπο που αποδίδεται η σκέψη στο βιβλιο αυτό. Και βέβαια θα ήταν όλα διαφορετικά αν η σκέψη μας αποτυπωνόταν τόσο απλά όσο ο συγγραφέας καταφέρνει να κρύψει την απλότητα πίσω από το μοναδικό ύπνος του.
Πραγματικά ωραίο βιβλίο...

[Charlie Stephen]

Merleau-Ponty brings philosophy to the outer edges in substance and particularly in style. This book is deep, poetic, and often elusive, a kind of hybrid of literature and philosophy that will delight readers who are interested in phenomenology but might annoy others who'd like more precise and sustained argumentation.